The Expression of Red
by Nindryal
Summary: Forensic pathologist, Lucy Heartfillia, didn't expect new friend and famous local artist, Natsu Dragneel, to have such a close link to the murder of a local teen girl.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello!  
This is my first fic, so apologies if there is many mistakes! So, I'm a huge fan of crime shows, and thought of this! I'll talk more at the end of the story! I'll rate this T, please tell me if I should change it (I mean, I don't have sex scenes planned or anything... but?)  
1)WARNING: Lucy is a Forensic Pathologist meaning she cuts the bodies open, just thought you should know (Just in case!)!**

**2) I don't own Fairy Tail (I wish ;) )!**

_**Chapter 1**_

Lucy looked down at the body, examining the purple bruises on the lower rib cage. She'd already established the cause of death as a blow to the head, obvious due to a chunk of its head missing, but she was trying to figure out what actually happened during his last few days on earth. That way she'd be able to gain some sort of hint of who killed the poor guy.

"Stage 3 bruises present on lower rib cage. What caused this shall be more evident once I look under the skin, and looking at the bone," She spoke into the voice recorder, setting it down on the table next to her and then picking up the dissecting blade. It always amazed her how easy she found it to slice someone open, then again, they were dead. It was just like slitting open the stomach of an unfortunate frog in a high school biology class, only this time the people weren't bred for the sole purpose of sending them to their dissecting doom.

Lucy Heartfillia was a forensic pathologist meaning her job was to determine cause of deaths by examining the corpses of unfortunate murder victims. It was grim, but never boring. Looking back to the body she'd just sliced open, she noticed little blood oozed out meaning that it had been a while since the body was actually murdered. She looked at the photos from the crime scene, observing the lower parts of the body. She smiled realising her ideas were correct – red patches.

"Blood has gone to the lowest parts of the body therefore the estimate time of death was no less than 2 days, however due to the stage 3 bruise and the phase 2 head injury, the date of death was no more than 3 days. Day of death, 3rd of May. Specific time is…" She looked to the bruising again, and the bruises in the tissue under the first layer of skin, "6pm to 9pm. See photo reference 13 of under flesh bruising. This information shall be sent to the police to assist with investigations and a forensic team shall scope the body for a final evidence check. Lucy Heartfillia covers the body and leaves at 1pm," She spoke into it again, before placing the device in her white lab coat pocket. Once the body was covered she walked out of her lab, into the shower room.

To Lucy, nothing was better than a shower after a body examination. It made sure she didn't carry anything from the dead and it made her feel clean. She let the cold water just fall on her, closing her eyes for a moment of rest. She'd spent the whole night at a crime scene taking photos of the body and then doing a full body examination. Her job was best done as soon as possible, which meant no sleep for her.

Lazily, she picked up her clothes and put her casual clothes on. The phone in her pocket beeped – a meeting.

She groaned under her breath, "that time already?" She walked to her office, put on her lab coat, again, and grabbed a coffee from her coffee machine. The soft hum of the machine was almost enough to make her drop asleep where she was standing. She grabbed a second recording device to record the meeting, just in case. 'This'll be a long day,' she thought while walking to the room.

7pm, she was finally going home. Her first meeting just repeated everything she already knew about the body and its murder. She offered ideas, plausible ideas she would add, for the weapon, yet the detectives wouldn't have it. And, despite the mass amount of evidence stating that the possible weapon was, in fact, a hammer and not a blunt household object – which infuriated her to no end. Luckily, she didn't fall asleep and left that meeting at 3pm. After a half an hour nap in her soft and inviting desk chair was a formal identification of the body of which she had to be present for – and they were always emotionally draining. Then, after a ton of paperwork, she was finally free to leave.

Not bothering to take off her lab coat, she left for home. Arriving at the bus stop, she waited and observing the lively city of Magnolia. Young people flooded the streets with drinks in their hands and the wish to get pulled deep in their minds. She smirked, knowing the hangover they'll get tomorrow will, most probably, make them regret the 2 minute shag they had around the back ally of some dingy club.

The bus pulled up and, due to her tiredness, she didn't realise that she'd been knocked to the ground by a drunk woman and her relatively large group of friends.

"I apologise for her, she's slightly drunk and the night hasn't even started yet," a man laughed awkwardly. She looked up, accepting the hand up. She looked towards the group of people, however it was the pink haired man that helped her up that caught her eye and, if it was any other day, she would stop to flirt hoping he wasn't a complete arsehole. Unfortunately for her, and him she smirked to herself, today wasn't 'any other day' and she was utterly shattered.

The drunk one fell stepped forward, falling onto the floor at her feet. The girl had long brown hair, which Lucy suddenly felt envious of, was wearing next to nothing, and even Lucy had to admit that the girl could get away with it.

'She's so stunning,' She thought.

"Shorrey," she slurred.

'And extremely drunk' She giggled, ignoring the weird looks from the group of people. Lucy smiled at them all, once more thanking the gorgeous man with the pink hair for helping her up before running on the bus, dodging the closing door.

They all waved her off, which she found weird. 'What kind of people wave a stranger off?' She laughed, before noticing all the curious and judgemental eyes of the other passengers, 'Today really was a weird day.' And the bus drove Lucy off home.

"Natshu?"

"Yeah, Cana?" He asked the girl he was currently holding up. Damn him for losing rock paper scissors, but he knew that Erza would slaughter him if she left her behind.

"Watsh thissss?" She held the small devise to his face, as he pushed it further back to allow his eyes to focus. It was a small black machine that looked like small MP3 player, however on further look he noticed it was the opposite. He took it off of the drunken woman, placing it in his own pocket.

"It's a recording device," He bumped her up due to the drunk girl slipping slowly further down his side. She looked left, and then right, and then left again.

"Like spies?" She whispered, Natsu chuckled at his friend, 'She usually holds her drink better than this,'he thought.

"Yeah, Like spies!"

**Hello again, so that was the first chapter! Was it alright? Please review and what-not so I know if you like it. I'll aim for at least 1,000 words per chapter, hopefully more as it goes along (Fingers crossed). Warning though, I am going through my exams to get into university, I'll try to make sure it doesn't get in my way - but no promises!**

**Anyway, please review! **

**-Nindryal-**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Chapter 2_**

"I wonder what's on it," he held the device right up to his face, a piece of paper was cello taped on the side. On it was written, 'Lucy Heartfillia'. "You think I can listen to it." He looked around the bar – well it was more like a pub, was busy like usual. He was looking particularly for Erza, a fierce red headed woman who was like a sister to him – a moody, bossy elder sister that had to get her way, but he loved her anyway, Natsu loved all his friends. He pressed play.

"Case number 30112: Stage 3 –"

"NATSU!" He fumbled to press pause, but eventually did. "I told you not to press play! It could be important information," Erza snatched the recording device out of his hand, throwing it to the bluenette next to her. She looked at the name before flicking her phone out and typing.

"Aren't you real good at keeping it safe. Why don't you smash it on the floor while you're at it?" Natsu grumbled, not quite loud enough for Erza to hear. Natsu was a brave man, but not brave enough to stand up to Erza – at least not today.

"Any results Levy?" Erza took a seat in the booth, Gray following with everyone's drinks on a tray.

Levy shook her head, "Not on Lucy herself, but her family. They're quite famous," Levy coughed before reciting the article in a posh voice, "'The Heartfillia Family are, not only graced with good looks, academically and financially blessed. Not without a little hard work. Jude Heartfillia, successful business man owning several of the largest businesses in the world while his wife is a famous pianist.'" She stopped reading and scanned over the rest of the article, "The rest is boring! All we need to know is that she's a posh kid whose Daddy gave her a good education and good job prospects while the rest have to work hard!"

"Levy, don't judge the girl! Just because you've had bad experiences with rich kids doesn't mean that she's like that!" Erza schooled her, but Levy just pouted.

"Yeah, you're probably right! At least we know that if we can't give it back to her she can afford a new one!" Everyone laughed, continued drinking and chatting as more people joined their group. Natsu subconsciously fiddled with the voice recorder. 'What if it's important?' He thought, 'It did start with a case number and that is usually slightly important.' He sighed, and just joined the conversation. Whatever he was thinking about could wait until the morning – he just finished a commission and he deserved to drink until he forgets the commission ever happened.

Placing the recorder in his pocket, he yelled out to his friends, "Who wants another drink?"

Lucy had fallen asleep as soon as her head hit her soft pillow and now she'd slept off the fatigue effects from her all-nighter. Again, she had a shower, normal people would say her showering habits were above normal but due to the fact that she deals with crime evidence she can't risk contaminating evidence. She continued getting ready for work. Luckily for her, she only had to be in to complete some paperwork, check her recordings ect. It was a Saturday after all. She decided to dress up today, usually creating plans later at work. Finally after stuffing her lab coat in her bag, she left her apartment.

"Morning Juvia!" She yelled into the office. Juvia was the offices – well, some would call her an assistant but she was more than that. Juvia practically ran the place, she did the accounting, worked the funding, filed all the paperwork that Lucy filled out and controlled press. Anything Lucy didn't do, she did and some dared call her an assistant? Most importantly, Juvia was one of Lucy's only friends – in Magnolia.

Juvia looked up from her overly organised desk, "Morning Lucy, Juvia hopes you caught up on your sleep," She smiled as she stood up, putting the paperwork Lucy completed yesterday neatly into a filing cabinet with all draws and folders marked with bright colours.

Lucy couldn't help but smile back, she'd be useless without her, "Yeah, I did, thanks. What paperwork did you want me to do? More on the body from yesterday?"

"Yes, Juvia received paperwork from forensics that they would like you to go through. They also want the verification of notes that they received," Lucy nodded in reply. This wasn't unusual. Once Lucy sent paperwork off, they'd send a copy back to make sure that all vital information is on there, if not. The same process repeated until it's final. Lucy chose to sit in the desk opposite Juvia's instead of her own office – she much preferred staying out with Juvia as much as she could, only using her office for private meetings, storing private information and to sleep in. Grabbing into her bag, she pulled out her lab coat and searched through the pockets – nothing.

"Shit!" Lucy shot up and ran out of the room and into her office.

Juvia stood up too, "What's wrong?" She yelled, only witnessing Lucy running from room to room shoving things around eventually getting back the desks and flopped herself on the seats, fingers on the side of her temples. Juvia sat down too, waiting for a response.

"I've lost my recorder! That has confidential information on and I use it for verification," Lucy sighed, going to get her paperwork out for verification instead. She started her job, continuing to talk to Juvia.

"Is it at your home?" She asked.

"No, I would have notic-" Lucy cut herself off with a groan.

Juvia replied almost instantly, "What? Have you remembered?"

Lucy nodded, "I don't know for certain, but this drunken girl and her friends knocked me of yesterday at the bus stop. It must have fallen out of my pocket."

"Juvia thinks that if the bin men haven't come by then it will still be in the floor," Juvia smiled, "Juvia also thinks you should have a look after work – you do have a lot of work to do today."

"You're probably right Juvia, thanks," Lucy smiled at Juvia who smiled back, "Let's get this work done then."

It took them a good few hours to finish the paperwork, with a lunch break in between of course.

"Juvia must be off or she's going to be late, but Juvia has to file these!" She complained.

Lucy took the paperwork out of her hands, "I'll do it!"

"Are you sure? Juvia still remembers the last time…" She said, staring at the clock. But, Lucy just pushed her out, grabbing her bag and jacket. She put it on Juvia.

"You've already colour coded it, I'll just put it in the right colours. You don't want to be late for your boyfriend!" Lucy grinned.

Juvia smiled back, "Thank you, Lucy! Remember to lock up after you," she left, but then swung her head round the door, "And look for your recorder! Bye!" And she was finally gone.

Lucy did enjoy being in the office by herself, the peace and quiet. She left her lab coat here this time, realising it was more hassle than it's worth if she took it home. After switching the lights off and locking up, she left for the bus stop. She prayed to whatever force was out there to help her find it. She scanned the floor on arrival, deciding it could have slipped under the seats, she got on the floor and looked under. She couldn't see it.

"Shit," She muttered under her breath. She just paused like that for a while, suddenly feeling emotionally drained. Someone crouched down next to her.

"What'cha looking for?" He asked, Lucy looked up realising it was the pink haired man from last night, she could never forget pink hair. She was suddenly hopeful.

"Small black device, it's a recorder. Please say you have it!" She cried out, but he gave a chuckle in reply. He pulled it out of his pocket and Lucy went to grab it, suddenly, the device was far away as he held it above her. "Not funny," She crossed her arms.

"It's got important stuff on it, you're going to have to prove you're who you say you are!" He teased. Not having any of the teasing she brought out her driving licence and held it to his face.

"There, happy now,"

He examined the licence before finally nodding, "Stage one complete, now onto stage two!"

"Are you fucking kidding me? I need that device, I don't care if I have to take it by force, but I need it." Natsu was taken back for a second before giving a big chest laugh.

"Look, Lucy, my friends, you know the ones that were with me, said that they have to be their when we give it back. Something about us all being responsible. As much I would love to give it to you now, I don't want to feel Erza's wrath. So, they'll be at the local bar. Follow," He turned round and started to walk.

"You expect me to just trust you?"

He stopped and turned his head, grinned a big toothy grin and said, "Well you need the recorder,"

Lucy sighed and followed him, what's the worst that could happen.

**Hello! Chapter 2! I was going to upload it earlier, but I ran out of time - coursework was due for the year. Now coursework is done, I'm free (Until exams that is!) But, I now have more time, which is good!**

**Anyway, tell me what you think! Bye!**

**-Nindryal**


End file.
